


Pink Tutus and Hellhounds

by Brinny



Series: Pink Tutus and Hellhounds [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6574564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinny/pseuds/Brinny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written forever and ever ago and titled something entirely different, just a little story about Dean stopping by the Roadhouse whenever he's near Nebraska.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Tutus and Hellhounds

The situation is far from ideal. Dean stops by whenever he’s near Nebraska, just like he promised. He always calls first, afraid that one time he’ll walk into the Roadhouse and Jo will wise up and send his ass right back out the door. She hasn’t yet, but he still refuses to rule out that one day she might. 

He pulls up in front of the bar, tires grinding loudly over the gravel as he presses down on the breaks. Stepping out of the car, Dean makes a quick note to tell her that the last ‘e’ on the sign is flickering on and off, the neon lettering now reading _Harvell’s_. She’ll need to get it fixed and he’s not around enough to do it.

After a few unsure steps, he pushes through the front door, hinges giving a squeak in approval. 

Jo’s waiting inside, beer on the bar, poured and ready. He’s not sure what makes her still care as much as she does, but then he remembers why he comes back each time. 

“Hey,” he says. 

She smiles and he leans in, his lips brushing over her jaw. 

“You made it,” she says. She shrugs like she’s not sure he was going to come, but then just smiles wider. 

“Always do.”

Jo nods and Dean grins back, takes a seat at the bar. Sliding onto the stool next to him, she laughs a bit uncertainly and runs a tired hand over her face, stopping at her chin and resting her cheek on her knuckles with her elbow pressed into her thigh. She kind of looks like she did the night that he first kissed her—some impossible combination of tough and shy that’s entirely Jo. 

He dips his head down to kiss her again and his lips still miss her mouth. 

“You know your sign’s broken, huh?” 

“Ash said he’d get on it.”

Dean nods and purses his lips, taking a lengthy sip of his beer. 

A loud thump sounds from one of the backrooms and Jo looks towards the back of the bar. She doesn’t see anything and turns back around with a small shrug. It’s quiet for a moment and then there’s an even louder thump, this time from the hallway. Dean’s eyebrows crease curiously into his forehead and Jo leans over the counter, craning her neck as she tries to get a better view. 

There’s a muffled shuffling, a soft whisper of fabric dragging across the scuffed wood floor, and Dean looks down to see a little girl, her brown hair barely visible beneath the too large cowboy hat, crawling on her hands and knees on the floor of the bar. 

Jo noisily clears her throat, trying to get her attention, but the girl just keeps shimmying across the ground, maneuvering around table legs. Every once and awhile, her eyes dart around the piled chairs and her breath hitches slightly.

Sighing, Jo tosses Dean an apologetic smile, and then tries clearing her throat again. The girl stops, frozen on the floor. 

“Why aren’t you in bed, missy?” Jo asks. Her voice takes on a strictly no nonsense tone that Dean immediately recognizes as a trait inherited from Ellen Harvelle. “Hmm?”

The girl looks up guiltily (and Dean would too, if he was on the receiving end of that) and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her pajamas – seven years old and already trouble. 

“I thought that, maybe, I heard a hellhound,” she says. 

Jo’s mouth sets into a light frown, but Dean laughs. The girl’s eyes quickly flick over to him and her face stretches into a wide grin, minus a couple of front teeth. 

“Dean!” she squeals. 

“I’m sorry,” he says with a smirk and small shake of his head. “Have we met?”

“Dean, it’s me.” 

He plays dumb, scratching his forehead with his thumb and forefinger and giving another almost sad shake of his head when she looks up at him expectantly. 

“And who are you?” he asks. 

Standing up, she fists her tiny hands on her hips and gives him an angry pout. Dean has to hold back a snort when he sees that the pale pink tutu she’s wearing is pulled over spaceship pajamas. He thinks he remembers that Sammy had a similar pair when he was her age. The wooden toy shotgun that she has strapped across her back, however, would have probably been real in the Winchester household. 

“Sorry,” he says again. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

She tips her chin up at him, trying to get a better look, as if she really might be wrong and this man sitting on the creaky barstool isn’t in fact who she thinks it is. The cowboy hat slips down over her eyes and falls to her nose. Jo reaches over and tugs it back into place. The girl’s lip pushes out in confusion and she rubs her nose with her sleeve again. Dean laughs. 

“Oh, wait!” He nods slowly and puts a finger to his lips. “It’s coming back to me now. Rob-something, right?”

A small smile starts to pull up at the corner of her mouth. 

Dean grins and gives a loud and triumphant snap of his fingers. “Robert!” 

“Rob _in_ ,” she says, like he might be the dumbest person who ever lived. 

He shrugs. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Robin giggles and pulls herself up onto Dean’s lap. Her fingers immediately curl around the amulet that loosely hangs around his neck and she gives the cord a small tug, smiling as Dean lurches forward. He leans in and kisses her firmly on the cheek and she let out a laugh as day old stubble tickles her face. 

“Where’s Sam? Did he come too?” she asks.

She stands up suddenly and pushes herself up on her tiptoes, peering over Dean’s shoulder, like he might be hiding the gargantuan sized Sam somewhere behind him. Her bare toes press into his thighs and her small hands push against his chest as she tries to lean over him to get a better look. 

“Robin, sweetie, be careful,” Jo says. 

Dean slips his arm under her knees and lugs her back onto his lap before she topples off his legs.

“Sam didn’t come?” Robin asks. 

“Sam’s with Del, in Illinois,” Dean says. “But he said he’ll be swinging by in a couple of weeks. He might even have a present or two.” 

Robin’s eyes grow wide. The girl’s never met a present that she hasn’t liked, Dean’s sure. 

“So,” he says. “What’s my favorite girl been up to?”

“Gran says that you have a favorite girl in every state north of Texas,” Robin tells him with a nod.

Jo lets out a small, not very subtle, cough and Dean smirks. 

“Oh, is that what she says?” he asks. 

“Yep.”

Dean nods. “Well, that sure sounds like your Gran all right.” 

He loops his arms around Robin and gives her a quick shake. When she was younger, Dean used to tell her that he had to prepare her for freak Nebraska earthquakes and this was the only way she’d learn. 

“So?” he says again. “You gonna tell me what you’ve been doing?” 

“I told you. I thought I heard a hellhound. So, I’m hunting it.”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing? Tracking hellhounds? Sounds intense.”

She leans into his neck and puts her mouth next to his ear, lips sticky when they lightly touch the side of his face. She cups a hand around her mouth, eyes shifting to look at her mom. 

“It’s not real, just pretend,” she whispers. 

“Oh,” Dean says in a whisper of his own. “Gotcha.”

Pulling away, she smiles and her tongue finds its way into one of the gaps between her teeth and slides over gum.

“Hey!” he near-exclaims. “You’re missing teeth.” Dean puts his hand under her chin and tilts her face closer to his own, examining the small holes that fill her mouth. Kids grow up way too fast. “Man, I come back and you’ve lost body parts. What’s next, you gonna drop an arm on me?”

“No,” she says, still sounding like she can’t believe that Dean has enough smarts to get himself dressed in the morning. 

“I don’t know,” Jo says. She nods playfully at the two of them. “That left one looks a little loose, don’t you think, Dean?”

Dean looks down and pulls lightly on Robin’s arm. She pokes at her own shoulder and shakes her head, but Dean just sighs and contorts his face into an exaggerated frown. 

“Yeah, it might fall off any day now.” 

“Mom!” 

“Don’t look at me, he’s an expert,” Jo says.

Robin smiles, but it quickly dissolves into a slow yawn, and Jo reaches over to rub her daughter’s leg affectionately. 

“Robin, honey, why don’t you say goodnight to Dean?” 

“But he just got here! And I’m not even tired. I promise I’m not.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and tucks her chin downward and her lower lip pushes out in a pout. Dean’s pretty sure that the last time Sam was here, he gave her lessons. No one can look that pathetically sad without practice. Lots and lots of practice. 

“Dean’ll be here in the morning,” Jo assures her. 

She quirks an eyebrow in Robin’s direction and Dean knows that the little girl recognizes the look on her mother’s face, because she huffs and untangles her arms without argument.

“Goodnight Dean,” she mumbles. 

“Night kiddo.” 

Robin hugs her arms around his neck and gives him a quick kiss and then Dean helps her off the stool. She starts slowly walking back to her room and then she whirls around, running back to him and her mom, her tiny legs in a full sprint. She sheds her tutu and then undoes the shotgun from the strap and hands it over to Dean.

“For the hellhound,” she says, half-serious look on her face. “In case it comes back.”

Dean winks. “I’ll keep an eye out.” 

Robin smiles and then taps the gun in his hand.

“Gran says it’s a Winchester,” she says. “Just like me and you.”

Dean’s throat goes dry and he tries to swallow. He looks at Robin’s round face and then back at the toy gun that suddenly feels too heavy in his hand. He knows that Jo’s staring at him and he manages to choke out a muffled, “Yeah.”

“Isn’t it cool that we have the same last name?” Robin asks. 

“Yeah,” he says again, nodding in agreement. “Very cool.”

Jo shifts uncomfortably behind him and he can hear her let out a shaky breath.

“Robin, c’mon, to bed,” she says, voice low. 

Robin sighs and grabs her tutu off the floor, hugging it against her chest as she shuffles, a little bit faster this time, down the hallway. 

Dean sets the gun down on the counter, wood smacking hard against wood, and then promptly drains the rest of his beer in one long gulp. 

It never gets any easier and he’s known it for awhile now. And Jo knows it too, but they’re both just too chicken shit to do anything about it. Or maybe they just don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to do about it. Leave something alone for long enough and it’ll only get worse, not better. 

“I think we should tell her,” he says. 

Jo looks at him, her lips pressed in a tight line. She vehemently jerks her head back and forth and Dean wants to grab her and make her stop. He scowls into his empty glass instead. 

“We should tell her.” 

“Dean, no.”

He grits his teeth. “Jesus, Jo. She should know.” 

“Why? So she can mourn a father instead of a friend when you die?” Jo asks. “No. We’ve been through this, Dean. I don’t want my daughter to lose her dad and go through the same kind of pain that I did.”

“Our daughter,” he says. “And I did it too, wasn’t any picnic for me either.” He sighs, frustrated. “And tell me how it’s not worse that she doesn’t even have a dad to lose at this point, huh?”

“Look,” she begins firmly. “We decided this a long time ago, Dean. And I know it’s not perfect, but it’s working. Right?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. 

She continues uncertainly, “And you’re never here.” 

“That’s not because I don’t want to be.” 

“I know.”

“I do love her,” he says. 

“I know,” she repeats, sad sort of smile tugging at her lips.

Dean nods and pushes his empty glass around the counter, batting it back and forth between his hands. He can’t help but think that tonight is going to be the night that she throws his ass out the door. 

Jo stares at him for a bit and then with a uneasy sigh, she tosses a fistful of her hair over her shoulder, and brings her arms down to rest on the bar. 

“We’ll tell her tomorrow,” she says. 

Grinning lightly, Dean slides his arm across her waist and pulls her closer to him. His lips bump along her chin before his mouth finally pushes to hers and it’s been more than a few years since he’s actually kissed her with just as much teeth and tongue as there were lips. He isn’t surprised when she tugs herself away. Lines with them always were a bit on the blurry side and sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s crossed one or not. 

“Sorry.” 

Jo shrugs and laughs. “You get a free one.” 

“How about a free two?” He lifts his eyebrows a little. Dean likes to push his luck. 

Jo just laughs again and leans forward to kiss him, her hand on his cheek and her mouth softly covering his, tongue just barely touching the inside of his upper lip. She pulls back and slowly rubs her thumb across his mouth. Dean smiles and presses a light kiss to her palm and she rolls her eyes at the attempted romanticism and moves behind the bar to grab him another beer. 

And it’s strange, because he knows that even if they tell Robin the truth, it’s still going be far from ideal. But a part of him can’t help but think that it’ll be different. Part of him thinks that it’s going to work out. Him and Jo and Robin and Sammy. And it kind of makes him think of family. 

And tomorrow, that’s what they’ll be. A family. 

He lets out a happy laugh and Jo smiles back at him.


End file.
